How to be compliant with the new email sender requirements for Google & Yahoo

Here are the main requirements that you’ll need to satisfy no later than February 1st. 

Set up DMARC authentication for your sending domain (highest priority)

You need to set up DMARC authentication for your sending domain in your DNS provider yourself. Please follow the step-by-step process below to ensure compliance with Google's stricter requirements (once met, you will also meet Yahoo's requirements).

Step-by-Step Guide to Setting up DMARC Authentication

Setting up DMARC is a process performed outside of Patch through your DNS provider. There are a large number of different DNS providers, but the steps below describe how DMARC is generally implemented.

To set up DMARC, your network administrator or owner of your domain will need to log in to the domain’s DNS settings to add a DMARC record.

1. Log In to Your DNS Provider: Access your DNS provider's dashboard, where you manage your domain's DNS records. The more common DNS providers are GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, Bluehost, etc.)
2. Locate Your Domain Settings (DNS Records): Navigate to the section where you can manage your domain's DNS records. This is typically found under "Domain Settings" or a similar label.
3. Add a new DNS record: Click the button to add a new record. Once you do you will need to enter the following information:
   
   Type: TXT
   Host: _dmarc
   Value: v=DMARC1; p=none
   rua tag: optional - read this article to determine if you want to include a rua tag for your domain.
   
   Here is a basic example using GoDaddy:
   
   Note: In the name or host value, GoDaddy does not require you to include your domain address (yourdomain.com), however, every provider is different so we recommend looking at their specific help center articles to determine whether this needs to be included or not. If you do need to include the domain value it would look like this instead:
   
   
   
4. Save Your Changes: Confirm and save your DMARC record settings. These changes will be propagated through your DNS provider.
5. Verifying your email authentication configuration: To verify that the record has been published successfully, you can input your domain into the DMARC checker offered by EasyDMARC. With this tool, a status of Warning or Valid is compliant with Gmail and Yahoo’s sender requirements.

Align your “From:” header with your domain

As a Patch client, you have already set up your custom sending domain within your account. When you set this up you also created your email alias to use as your ‘send from’ address. The new requirement states that if you’re a bulk sender, you need your own sending domain—you can no longer use a shared domain (gmail.com / yahoo.com). The domain in your “From:” header (what your subscribers see in their inbox) has to align with your sending domain in order to be compliant with DMARC alignment. Your Patch email alias that uses your custom domain meets this requirement. 

Make unsubscribing easy and clear

• Your marketing emails must include a method to unsubscribe in just one step. Patch by default includes the one-click unsubscribe function in all of your email footers. With these new requirements, there are no steps you need to take when sending emails from your Patch account other than ensuring you do not remove this functionality from your footer. 
• There must also be an unsubscribe link in the message body—but that link does not have to be one click to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe link in your footer covers this requirement as well.
• Keep your spam rates low. You should already track your spam rates to try and keep your spam complaints as low as possible in order to avoid the spam folder— going forward you will need to keep them under 0.10%. You can use Google’s Postmaster Tools to monitor your spam complaint rates.